Cullingworth nestles in Yorkshire's wonderful South Pennines and I have the pleasure and delight to be the village's Conservative Councillor. But these are my views - on politics, food, beer and the stupidity of those who want to tell me what to think or do. And a little on mushrooms.

Wednesday, 6 October 2010

Wednesday Whimsy: The place where Gods are made.

There is a place, I know it for sure, where the Gods are made. And it is a special place. Not calm, not beautiful, not a land flowing with milk and honey. But special nonetheless. Because we need Gods.

Oh, I know my skeptical, atheistical friends that you don't believe. I've read all the long, dull, uninspiring explanations of why there can't possibly be a God - let alone Gods. But you don't understand - we NEED Gods.

"When a tree comes to be viewed no longer as the body of the tree-spirit but simply as its abode which it can quit at pleasure, an important advance has been made in religious thought. Animism is passing into polytheism."

The Gods are the spirits of civilisation, simple ways to explain and understand our progress from nomadic life to stability and to the city that defines us today. It does not matter really whether the Gods care. If there is love there. If we are offered salvation through those Gods. What matters is what those Gods represent - how they define the metaphysical world in the way the elements and the laws of Newton help define the physical world.

Our need for Gods remains undiminished. For sure we don't actually call them "Gods" any more but we still weave myths around people, events and symbols - myths that make the Gods. And the place where Gods are made is in our collective - our sharing of life together on the planet. It is a contested place - the Gods scrap for dominance in that place. And it is untidy, cluttered and dusty. On the floor lie broken Gods - discarded and unwanted. And at the back are the new gods - Gods in shiny plastic, glass and metal. The Gods of technology, of communications and of the shopping mall. The spirits of our secular age.

So visit the place the Gods are made. Understand that we need Gods to know the magic of modern life as those in ages past knew the magic of their time.